How to Be an Artist Without Losing Your Mind, Your Shirt, Or Your Creative Compass: A Practical Guide


JoAnneh Nagler - 2016
    Author JoAnneh Nagler wants you to welcome your creativity and continue to make art—but to do so with a plan. In this groundbreaking book, she provides step-by-step strategies to teach writers, sculptors, painters, musicians, designers, and other artists how tohave a well-supported, well-lived life—and make art at the same time.Learn how to:Answer your own artistic callings and get to your art workGive up starving and struggling and build a supported, creative daily lifeManage time, money, and day jobs with easy-to-learn, simple toolsDevelop rock-solid creative work ethics and motivational skillsNo matter what kind of creative person you are, this book has the tools you need to live the life you’ve always wanted to live—right now, and for your whole life long.

Paris In Mind


Jennifer Lee - 2003
    Mark Twain celebrates the unbridled energy of the Can-Can. Sylvia Beach recalls the excitement of opening Shakespeare & Company on the Rue Dupuytren. David Sedaris praises Parisians for keeping quiet at the movies. These are just a few of the writers assembled here, and each selection is as surprising and rewarding as the next.Including essays, book excerpts, letters, articles, and journal entries, this seductive collection captures the long and passionate relationship Americans have had with Paris. Accompanied by an illuminating introduction, Paris in Mind is sure to be a fascinating voyage for literary travelers.Jennifer Allen * Deborah Baldwin * James Baldwin * Dave Barry * Sylvia Beach * Saul Bellow * Bricktop * Art Buchwald * T. S. Eliot * M.F.K. Fisher * Janet Flanner * Benjamin Franklin * Ernest Hemingway *Langston Hughes * Thomas Jefferson * Stanley Karnow * Patric Kuh * A. J. Liebling * Anaïs Nin * Grant Rosenberg * David Sedaris * Irwin Shaw *Gertrude Stein * Mark Twain * Edith Wharton * E. B. White

Boot: An L.A.P.D. Officer's Rookie Year


William Dunn - 1996
    Simpson trial brought the L.A.P.D. national notoriety as a corrupt force out of synch with the city it polices. But is this force of 8,000 men and women really made up of mavericks, racists, and rogues? In Boot, rookie police William Dinn takes readers inside that other L.A.P.D., where hardworking cops struggle to understand citizens' concerns and dodge criminals' bullets. National & L.A.

Up the Down Volcano


Sloane Crosley - 2011
    Literally. Crosley’s “Up the Down Volcano" delivers a hilariously honest account of her trip to South America to climb one of the highest volcanoes in the world. Armed with a prescription for malaria pills, a fleece vest, and a few feminine hygiene products, Crosley’s attempt to channel her inner Jon Krakauer doesn't go exactly as planned. As she experiences the effects of altitude sickness on her way up the volcano, her guide tells her to simply be “tranquillo.” Crosley expertly describes the misunderstandings that arise through interacting with another culture in another language, turning the classic adventure story on its funny bone. The results are, of course, touching and amusingly disastrous.

Go Your Own Way: Women Travel the World Solo


Faith Conlon - 2007
    In twenty-three beautifully crafted essays, women recount the thrills of traveling solo. Despite threat-assessment levels and airport-security hassles, women of all generations are traveling more freely and independently than ever before. In that go-for-it spirit, Go Your Own Way spans the globe: adventure diva Holly Morris finds herself lost in the jungles of Borneo, alone with her thoughts and a cold-blooded companion, Lara Triback's quest to learn the tango takes her to the late-night dance floors of Buenos Aires, Stephanie Griest finds female friends invaluable in her journey through Uzbekistan, and Amy Balfour recounts a hilarious trek up Yosemite's Half Dome. The writers in Go Your Own Way pay tribute to the empowerment of independent adventure and discovery, offering up the perfect antidote for today's climate of fear and international discord. All the while, they show that alone doesn't have to mean lonely.

The Naked Traveler: Across the Indonesian Archipelago


Trinity - 2013
    Four volumes of “The Naked Traveler” have been published to date, and have quickly become Indonesia’s best-selling travel book. Her books tell of her adventures around the world in compilations of thoughtful, entertaining and often hysterical short stories. Through her blog, books, and appearances, Trinity has inspired a young generation of Indonesians to expand their horizons through travel. For the first time in English, this compilation focuses on Trinity’s adventures in and around Indonesia, providing travelers to the region an indispensable insight into the culture and sights of this multi-faceted archipelago.

The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost: A Memoir of Three Continents, Two Friends, and One Unexpected Adventure


Rachel Friedman - 2011
    There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealized passion for adventure.  As her journey takes her to Australia and South America, Rachel discovers and embraces her love of travel and unlocks more truths about herself than she ever realized she was seeking. Along the way, the erstwhile good girl finally learns to do something she’s never done before: simply live for the moment.

The Coach Model for Christian Leaders: Powerful Leadership Skills for Solving Problems, Reaching Goals, and Developing Others


Keith E. Webb - 2019
    Rather than provide answers, leaders ask questions to draw out what God has already put into others. ICF Professional Certified Coach and speaker Keith Webb teaches Christian leaders how to create powerful conversations to assist others to solve their own problems, reach goals, and develop their own leadership skills in the process. Whether leaders are working with employees, teenagers, or a colleague living in another city, they’ll find powerful tools and techniques to increase leadership effectiveness. Based on first-hand experience and taught around the world, The COACH Model for Christian Leaders is packed with stories and illustrations that bring the principles and practice to life and transform leaders’ conversations into powerful results.

The Solace of Open Spaces


Gretel Ehrlich - 1984
    A stunning collection of personal observations that uses images of the American West to probe larger concerns in lyrical, evocative prose that is a true celebration of the region.

Beneath Blossom Rain: Discovering Bhutan on the Toughest Trek in the World


Kevin Grange - 2011
    He was thirty-three, at a turning point in life, and figured the best way to go at a crossroad was up. Against a backdrop of Buddhist monasteries and soaring mountains, Grange ventured beyond the mapped world to visit time-lost villages and sacred valleys. In the process, recounted here with a blend of laugh-out-loud humor, heartfelt insight, and acute observation, he tested the limits of physical endurance, met a fascinating assortment of characters, and discovered truths about faith, hope, and the shrouded secret of blossom rain.    Beneath Blossom Rain, Grange’s account of his journey, packs an adventure story, a romantic twist, and a celebration of group travel into a single entertaining book. The result is the ultimate journey for any traveler, armchair or otherwise. Along with high adventure, it delivers an engaging look at Bhutan—a country that governs by a policy of Gross National Happiness and that many regard as the last Shangri-La.Watch a book trailer.Purchase the audio edition.

Stacked: Your Super-Serious Guide to Modern Money Management


Joe Saul-Sehy - 2021
    Rich. Wealthy. Well-heeled. Moneyed. Affluent. Not bad--but why not get Stacked instead? If you've ever dreamed of a basic philosophy of money that'll help you live bigger, be bolder, and laugh harder, you need this book.In these uncertain times, the basics matter more than ever. But for most of us, concepts such as investing, budgeting, and getting out of debt just don't float our boats (or 150-foot yachts)--and so we put them off longer than we should. Joe Saul-Sehy and Emily Guy Birken are here to tell you that personal finance can be a lot more fun than you think. (No haberdashery, maritime knowledge, or specialized flatware required.)Learn about everything from side hustles, to hiring a legit financial adviser, to planning for emergencies, to what's new and exciting--and actually worth your time--in financial apps and software. If you're looking for the same old get-rich-quick clich�s, avocado toast shaming, or alphabet soup of incomprehensible financial terms, you won't find them here. Instead, Saul-Sehy and Birken take you step by step along the way to financial success, with their signature blend of shrewd financial information and wacky humor.

Basically...: My Life as a Real Essex Girl


Gemma Collins - 2013
    Her larger-than-life personality makes people cry with laughter as she haphazardly navigates through one romantic crisis after another.Gemma tries hard when it comes to finding 'Mr Right' - baking love pies and sexy texting - yet it never seems to work out. But does she care? Of course she doesn't. She always has the upper hand, leaving men quaking in their boots and women looking on in admiration. But finding her confidence has been a long and heartbreaking journey for Gemma.Inside, she opens up about the life events she endured before finding fame and feeling comfortable in her own skin. From breaking up with the love of her life and miscarrying a baby, to a drastic weight gain and depression; life for a real Essex girl is far from just an endless cycle of spray tans and vajazzles. Basically... is the touching yet riotously funny story of how a young girl with a big heart finally found what she'd been looking for. Herself.

On the Water: Discovering America in a Row Boat


Nathaniel Stone - 2002
    The hull glides in silence and with such perfect balance as to report no motion. I sit up for another stroke, now looking down as the blades ignite swirling pairs of white constellations of phosphorescent plankton. Two opposing heavens. ‘Remember this,’ I think to myself.”Few people have ever considered the eastern United States to be an island, but when Nat Stone began tracing waterways in his new atlas at the age of ten he discovered that if one had a boat it was possible to use a combination of waterways to travel up the Hudson River, west across the barge canals and the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, and back up the eastern seaboard. Years later, still fascinated by the idea of the island, Stone read a biography of Howard Blackburn, a nineteenth-century Gloucester fisherman who had attempted to sail the same route a century before. Stone decided he would row rather than sail, and in April 1999 he launched a scull beneath the Brooklyn Bridge to see how far he could get. After ten months and some six thousand miles he arrived back at the Brooklyn Bridge, and continued rowing on to Eastport, Maine. Retracing Stone’s extraordinary voyage, On the Water is a marvelous portrait of the vibrant cultures inhabiting American shores and the magic of a traveler’s chance encounters. From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a rower at the local boathouse bequeaths him a pair of fabled oars, to Vanceburg, Kentucky, where he spends a day fishing with Ed Taylor -- a man whose efficient simplicity recalls The Old Man and the Sea -- Stone makes his way, stroke by stroke, chatting with tugboat operators and sleeping in his boat under the stars. He listens to the live strains of Dwight Yoakum on the banks of the Ohio while the world’s largest Superman statue guards the nearby town square, and winds his way through the Louisiana bayous, where he befriends Scoober, an old man who reminds him that the happiest people are those who’ve “got nothin’.” He briefly adopts a rowing companion -- a kitten -- along the west coast of Florida, and finds himself stuck in the tidal mudflats of Georgia. Along the way, he flavors his narrative with local history and lore and records the evolution of what started out as an adventure but became a lifestyle. An extraordinary literary debut in the lyrical, timeless style of William Least Heat-Moon and Henry David Thoreau, On the Water is a mariner’s tribute to childhood dreams, solitary journeys, and the transformative powers of America’s rivers, lakes, and coastlines.From the Hardcover edition.

Simply Beautiful Photographs


Annie Griffiths - 2010
    Award-winning photographer Annie Griffiths culled the images to reflect the many variations on the universal theme of beauty. Chapters are organized around the aesthetic concepts that create beauty in a photograph: Light, Composition, Moment (Gesture and Emotion), Motion, Palette, and Wonder.Beyond the introduction and brief essays about each featured concept, the text is light. The photographs speak for themselves, enhanced by lyrical quotes from scholars and poets. In the chapter on Light, for example, we read these words of whimsical wisdom from songwriter Leonard Cohen: "Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the lights get in." And then the images flow, of light entering scenes via windows, clouds, and spotlights, from above, alongside, and behind, casting radiance upon young ballerinas and weathered men, into groves of autumn trees and island-dotted seas, revealing everything it touches to be beautiful beyond expectation.To illuminate the theme of Wonder, Griffiths chose a wish from Andre Bazin: "If I had influence with the good fairy...I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life." This thought is juxtaposed with an exquisite vision in white, a frame filled with the snowy-pure dots and rays of a bird's fan tail. And on it goes, picture after tantalizing picture, alive with wondrous beauty.When she created National Geographic Simply Beautiful Photographs, Annie Griffiths set two goals: to maximize visual delight, and to create a book unique in the world of publishing--one in which many of the photographs could be purchased as prints. She has succeeded on both counts. Many of these stunning images are available for order, and there can be no doubt as to the visual delight. You must open this book for yourself, and take in its radiant beauty.

The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way


Gabriella Bennett - 2018
    In The Art Of Coorie, Gabriella Bennett explores what coorie is and how it has helped nurture the astonishing creativity that Scotland is famed for, despite an often harsh and unforgiving climate.The Art of Coorie explores lifestyle, homes and interiors, traditions, and how to enjoy life despite challenging elements. It looks at how to appreciate what we have around us and how to use the best of all things Scottish to enhance life and its pleasures"It's high time the concept of coorie was more widely known. We've long valued the thought here in Scotland and now it can go out to the wider world and wrap up more folk, make them warm and well. Coorie is good for the heart and the soul." - NEIL OLIVER, presenter of BBC's Coast"Like a good malt whisky, The Art of Coorie shines Scotland in a lovely warm glow." - KIRSTY WARK, presenter of BBC's Newsnight